It starts as a helpful act on Spider Man’s part, because that’s what Spider Man does, doesn’t he? He helps people. It’s his whole MO, whether he’s helping a kid get his cat out of a tree, or helping a lost tourist, or helping someone whose car is getting broken into. A lot of times people don’t even realize they’ve been helped, or that it’s Spider Man who has helped them, because he doesn’t always have a pen and paper to leave a note. Besides, leaving a note on a car that he kept from getting stolen just seems like he’s bragging, he thinks. When he does leave a note it’s usually for the police, so they can have some information on whatever criminal he’s webbed up and left for them. ‘This dude came at me with a knife. He sliced my suit up. Oh yeah, and he was trying to mug a lady. I’m sure the security cameras at the corner store picked it all up. - Spider Man.’ Or, ‘I caught this dude stealing a bike. He cut the chain off of it. P.S. If you’re not the police, don’t take this bike!’ - Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man.’
Peter likes helping people, specifically the little guy that no one else will help, so it’s not out of the ordinary for Peter to do something simple like deliver a pizza.
Usually people don’t flag him down for help. It happens occasionally, but for the most part if people call out to him, it’s just to wave or say hello, or to ask him to do a flip, which always gets cheers from kids and tourists. So when he’s walking down the street and a door to a small mom and pop pizza parlor opens up, and a man calls out to him, Peter stops to see what’s up.
“Hey, yeah, you. You’re the Spider Man right? You’re really him?”
“I’m him,” Peter says cheerfully. It’s been a good day. He’s stopped two muggings and a car theft, and he just finished helping a fifth grader with his math homework. Plus, no one has tried to stab or shoot him tonight, so yeah, it’s been a good day.
“Listen, this is weird,” the guy says. He motions inside his little shop. It’s one of those takeout places. There’s no seating inside, just a little kitchen and a counter to pay for food. “My delivery driver just quit and I have a pizza that needs to go out. I can’t take it myself. I’m already telling people that call in that I can’t do any more deliveries tonight… pickup only, ya know? But I was wondering if-”
“If I’d deliver that pizza for you?” Peter asks. He can smell the delicious smells of bubbling golden cheese, pepperoni, and tomato sauce wafting out the open door.
“Yeah? I mean, it’s weird right? But- do you do that sort of thing?” The guy rubs the back of his neck like he feels strange just asking, but honestly, Peter loves this kind of stuff.
“I can do that for you Mr. Pizza guy,” Peter says. He’s grinning under his mask.
“Really?”
Spider Man nods and the guy smiles and motions for him to follow him inside. “Uh, it’s about ten blocks, and it’s about to be late. My delivery driver just walked off the job twenty minutes ago. He was pissed because no one has tipped him all night.”
“Do you have the address?” Peter asks.
The guy swipes a piece of paper off the counter with the address on it, and then retrieves the box of pizza Spider Man is supposed to deliver.
“They’ll pay you when you deliver. Er… look, you’re a vigilante, but uh, I’m kind of hoping you bring the money back. I’m not holding my breath or anything, but well- at least if you take it and run, I’ll know the pizza got to where it was going and I won’t have an angry customer.”
“I’ll bring it back,” Peter promises. “I’m a friendly neighborhood Spider Man,” he reminds him. Not a thief, is kind of implied in the word friendly. Otherwise he’d be a dastardly neighborhood Spider Man. If he ever has a super villain origin story type of situation, he’ll change his name to that.
The pizzeria owner hands the box of pizza to Peter and says, “It’ll be late in 10 more minutes.”
“I’ll have it there in five.” Peter looks at the box and then thinks about the logistics of swinging over Queens with a pizza box. He aims his web shooters at one edge of the box and shoots a small amount of webbing on it to hold it closed. He won’t be helping anyone if the pizza flies out of the box before he can get it to where it’s going. “Don’t worry,” he tells the man. “I’ll pull the webbing off before I deliver it.” Then he turns and hurries outside, sends a web up to a tall building, and swings off with a whoop.
Peter doesn’t do any flips on the way there, and tries to hold the pizza box as level as he can. He doesn’t want all the toppings to slide to one side, or for the pizza to be a pile of mush just because he’s doing acrobatics. He has one job at the moment, and that is to get this delicious smelling pizza to whoever ordered it.
He doesn’t need to look at the paper again to find the correct street. Peter has a mental map of most of the streets in Queens, and some in Brooklyn stored away in his mind. He can ask Karen for help directing him to where he’s going, but the address is simple to remember and easy for him to find.
He drops down to the street and pushes the buzzer at the front door to the small apartment block. A voice comes over the comm and asks, “Pizza?”
“Yup.” He looks down at the box and reads the name of the pizza place. It’s a place he hasn’t eaten at before because it’s too far from his own apartment to order from. “Donatello’s Pizza.”
“I’ll be right down,” the tinny voice says through the speaker, and then Peter can tell from the lack of the low hum that the buzzer has cut off. A minute later and the door opens, revealing a startled looking guy in his twenties.
“Whoa,” the guy breathes. “You’re- are you, dude.” He just closes his mouth, not really sure what to say. Finally he says, “Are you really Spider Man?”
“That’s me.”
“And you’re delivering my pizza?”
“Uh…” Peter tries to come up with something witty to say. He likes talking and joking with people, even criminals. Lately he’s been learning a lot of great comebacks from Mr. Stark, who always has smart things to say seemingly on the tip of his tongue. Sometimes the other Avengers accuse Mr. Stark of brainwashing him, and tell Peter the older hero is rubbing off on him too much. Peter doesn’t think that’s true though. All of this flies through his head in just a few seconds. “Spider Man’s pizza delivery service,” he says, as though this is actually a thing. Well, it sort of is, isn’t it? Because here he is with a pizza.
“Can I- wait, could I get a picture of you delivering my pizza? That’s not dumb is it? I want to post it to Instagram because no one’s going to believe me.”
Peter laughs. “Sure, sure, go ahead.”
So long as it’s not a criminal (well, ok, just the one time because the guy had been nice), Peter lets bystanders take pictures with him if they ask nicely. He holds up the pizza. “You want me to pose like this?”
The guy already has his phone out. “This is awesome. Yeah, just like that man.”
Peter holds a thumb up and smiles despite that no one can see it under his mask. It’s the thought that counts, he thinks.
The guy snaps the photo, Peter hands him the pizza and is ready to turn away, and then says, “Wait, uh, I’ve gotta take the payment too.”
The man doesn’t complain, a goofy grin on his face. He hands Peter twenty dollars and says, “Keep the change man.”
“Oh, well, thanks!” Peter calls, and then he shoots a web up and pulls away, flying into the night. He wants to get back to the pizza parlor as soon as possible so the guy doesn’t worry about Spider Man absconding with his money.
The man is waiting at the door for Peter, and opens it as soon as Peter drops down to the sidewalk. He looks anxious.
“Look,” Peter says, holding out the twenty dollar bill. “Just like I said. Here’s your money Mr. pizza guy.”
“Don,” he says, correcting him quickly. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come in, quick.”
Peter frowns but follows him inside. Don doesn’t seem worried about taking the money from him. In fact, he grabs a zip up leather envelope full of money and hands it to Peter. “Here, you know how to make change right?”
“Uh, yeah-” Peter trails away, not sure where this is going.
“That guy you delivered pizza to posted a picture of you online. Look, look!” The business phone on the counter rings but he ignores it. He hurries back around the counter and then pulls out half a dozen receipts, waving them in front of Spider Man’s face. “I’ve been getting orders non-stop for the last ten minutes! They’re all coming from people who saw the photo of you!” He looks gleeful. “Business hasn’t been this good in years! You’ll help me, right Spider Man?”
Peter shrugs. “Sure.” He turns and looks at the hours painted on the glass door. It’s ten, and the pizza place closes at eleven. It’s only an hour of his time, and he really doesn’t mind helping this guy make a little extra money tonight. Besides, it seems like he’s already had a rough night, with his delivery driver quitting and all.
The man claps his hands together once, and hurries to pull several pizzas out of the oven that had been baking while Peter had been making his way back to the pizzeria with the $20 from the first delivery.
Within five minutes he’s loaded up with three more pizza boxes, the address for each written on a sheet of paper and taped to the outside of its respective box. Peter secures the lid of each box closed with a web, and then webs the three boxes together on the edges. Then he’s off.
The first delivery is just down the street to a young mom with an excitable little boy that looks to be about five years old. It seems like she’s woken him up just to greet Spider Man at the door.
“Can you please sign this Spider Man?” the boy begs, holding up a Spider Man teddy bear. Peter stares down at it, surprised there’s merchandise like this. He’s seen a few Spider Man shirts, and knows there’s a poster. He always wonders who’s making money off of this, because it’s not him. “Sure little guy.” He takes a permanent marker the boy’s mother hands him, and signs the red and blue bear. Then he hands over the pizza, accepts payment, gives the little boy a salute, and heads out to deliver the other two pizzas.
His next delivery is to a shirtless overweight man who snorts when he sees Spider Man at his door and says, “Huh, will you look at that. Sometimes the internet tells the truth.” He snaps a photo of Spider Man without Peter’s permission, takes his pizza, and then pays him.
The third pizza he delivers is to a young couple who want to pose with him for a photo. They’re polite and tell Peter to keep the change.
He returns to Donatello’s three more times before eleven o’clock, and delivers 12 more pizzas, all to excitable fans who order pizza just to see Spider Man. He can’t deny that he’s having fun.
When he returns to the pizzeria for the last time that evening to return the zipped up money bag, Don looks exhausted from making more pizzas than he’s used to.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Don says.
“No problem,” Spider Man returns, handing over the bag.
“You don’t want to do this again, do you?”
“I uh, I have school and patrol and other stuff.”
“But I’ll pay you. I don’t expect a delivery boy to work for free!” He reaches into the bag and pulls out forty dollars. “That’s for an hour and a half of work, plus all the tips you brought in!”
“But- Spider Man doesn’t take money to help people sir,” Peter says.
“He does if he has a job. You gotta eat, right?”
“Erm… well, I mean, I can’t do it all night long,” Peter says. “What about at the end of my patrol?”
“Just like tonight?” Don asks.
“Sure. Maybe… nine to eleven Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday?”
“Hey, that sounds better than nothing,” Don says. “I’ll just make it pickup only the rest of the time.”
Peter bounces back and forth between his feet, chewing his lip under the mask. “I can’t do it forever,” Peter says. “Just until you get a new delivery guy.”
“Sure, sure,” Don agrees. “Listen, you don’t know what this means to me.”
Peter smiles. “You don’t happen to have any extra pizza do you?”
Don grins. “For you Spider Man, I’ll cook one up, on the house. Do you like pepperoni?”
“My favorite,” Peter says.
Ten minutes later he’s sitting on the roof of Donatello’s, mask rolled up over his nose and box of pizza open on the roof beside him. He’s five pieces in, and his stomach is feeling happy. Peter loves Pizza. He will never not say yes to pizza, even if it’s bad pizza from the school cafeteria. Donatello’s is not bad pizza, it’s delicious.
Stomach feeling full, Peter throws the empty box away in a dumpster and heads out for another hour of patrol. He doesn’t usually stay out this late, but he’s had a good day. Yeah, today has been the best day.
* * *
Peter had thought his helpful act would be just for a couple of weeks, but he knows as soon as he shows up the next night that Don probably isn’t going to be looking for a new delivery guy anytime soon. There’s a stack of pizza boxes waiting on the counter, and on each one written in black marker is, ‘Spider Man Delivery Hours - Monday - Wednesday, 9 PM - 11 PM.’ Judging by how tall the stack of pizzas waiting to be delivered is, Don is going to make a lot of money tonight.
“Look, I bought big stickers to hold the boxes closed on the edge.” He pulls out a couple bungee cords and wraps them around the stack that’s six boxes high. “Use these to keep them together, then you don’t have to web them up, right? Is this great or what?”
“Sure, yeah,” Peter says, taking the stack of boxes and trying to figure out how he’ll carry them while in the air. They’re bulky, but he decides to add an extra layer of webbing anyway and then carry them by the bungee cords like the cords are a handle. He knows that as soon as he delivers the first few, the stack will get smaller and more manageable. “Uh, no more than six at a time or I can’t swing through the air,” he says. “I don’t have a car.”
“I get it,” Don says. “Get those out and hurry back. I’ve got more ready to come out of the oven.” He looks so happy that Peter doesn’t want to ask if he’s looking into hiring someone else yet. For now, Peter’s just happy he can help.
* * *
By the third night, Don has put a sign up in his window featuring a crude drawing of Spider Man’s mask. Peter knows based on the night before that he’ll be delivering around fifty pizza’s tonight. The night before Don paid him $150. Customers tip big when it’s Spider Man delivering (except for the shirtless guy, who never does).
* * *
It had started as a helpful act, Peter reflects during his second week of delivering pizzas for Don, but now it’s just part of Peter’s routine. It’s his second job (his third if he counts the internship he does three days a week at Stark Tower, though he doesn’t get paid for that, and half the time instead of working in the lab, Peter is lounging on the couch next to his favorite superhero watching movies). His second job is helping people as Spider Man, and his third job is delivering pizzas. In reality, he reflects, all of these jobs involve Spider Man somehow, or were obtained because of Spider Man. As he delivers stack after stack of pizzas, he thinks forward to a couple of years in advance when he’ll be applying for college. If only he could put ‘Spider Man’ on his college applications as an extracurricular activity. Who knew what kinds of doors might open up for him.
As he flies through the city in the darkness delivering pizzas throughout the second week and into the third, Peter no longer thinks about Don hiring another delivery guy. He’s truly enjoying himself. He gets to interact with people at the end of his patrol in mostly positive ways.
Mostly positive, because there was the one guy (possibly from Hydra) that had seen the news online about Spider Man’s delivery service, ordered a pizza, and then tried to tase him to kidnap him. Peter had dealt with that by delivering a swift punch to his face, and then had taken his pizza to the roof and eaten it out of spite. He’d ended up putting some of his own money into the money bag to pay Don back. That was ancient history though and it’s all been smooth sailing since then.
* * *
It’s almost four full weeks before Ned finds out via a Spider Man tracker app and an online Spider Man fan Discord that Peter is delivering pizzas as Spider Man. Despite the long distance between their neighborhood and Donatello’s, Ned orders a pizza and makes Peter deliver it as Spider Man. When Ned opens the door, he has his arms crossed and is tapping his foot, one eyebrow raised. “Dude, not cool,” Ned says as he takes the pizza.
“What?” Peter askes, trying to act innocent, because he is. So, so very innocent.
“I’m your guy in the chair. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be the first to know when you take a side gig.”
Peter pulls his mask up over his nose just to grin at his best friend. “You want free pizza don’t you.”
Ned’s irritated look softens, then he glances up at him. “Do you think I could?”
He pulls his mask back down and says, “We’ll see.”
Don agrees to start making Spider Man two pizzas at the end of each night despite that only one of them is free. Peter uses some of his earnings to buy the second one each night, and then delivers it to Ned via his bedroom window. Ned’s parents wonder where Ned is getting all this extra gratuitous pizza from, but whatever Ned tells them seems to explain it away.
When Peter asks Ned a few days later what he’s told his parents, Ned only says, “I told them Spider Man is a college student that I’ve been tutoring in math and he pays me in pizza.”
“Fine,” Peter says, “Don’t tell me.”
* * *
Peter wishes it could have continued being smooth sailing. Don wishes that too. On his fourth week of delivering pizza, Peter is delivering his last pizza of the night when he hears a woman calling for help. He leaves the box of pizza on a roof and drops down to help her. She’s being held at knife point by a crazed looking guy. She gets away, but only because the guy goes after Peter. He’s not sure how the guy has managed to get the drop on him, but Peter stumbles away from the encounter with a stab wound to the gut.
Clutching his wound, he climbs gingerly back up to the roof to get the box of pizza, and then delivers it to the apartment down the street. He leaves it in front of the door, knocks, and then leaves without payment. He swings back to Donatello’s, but his arms and legs are like jelly. There’s no way he can make it home on his own.
“Holy- Spider Man! What happened? That’s not pizza sauce is it?!” Don is gripping his bald head and staring at Peter, who is lying on the floor on his back, suit soaked in blood around the stab wound.
“I uh… I got that last pizza delivered,” Peter croaks. “I didn’t get payment though. I had to stop a guy from killing this lady on the street. You’ll have to-” his voice catches, because the pain is throbbing and intense. “You’ll have to take it out of my pay.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Don says, grabbing a clean towel from the back and then bringing it out and pressing it into Spider Man’s wound. “You usually get a free pizza at the end of the night anyway, and it’s not like I’m gonna stiff my best delivery guy because he got stabbed!” He lifts the towel and when blood starts to pool again, he presses it back down quickly. “You gotta go to the hospital. Like… now!”
“No, no,” Peter says. “Stark Tower. There’s a doctor there.”
“Really?”
Peter nods. “There’s a whole… like a whole med bay. A mini-hospital.”
“I guess that makes sense. Hold tight, I’ll grab my keys.”
Peter calls out to him to tell him he doesn’t have to, but if Don doesn’t drive him, he’ll have to call Mr. Stark to come get him, and he really doesn’t want to drag his mentor down to Queens at 11:20 at night. So he lets Don help him up and into Don’s beat up old Toyota Camry.
Because it’s late, traffic is light and they make it to Stark Tower in 13 minutes, mostly because Don is freaking out and speeding, and blowing through red lights like he doesn’t even see them. Peter has him drop him off at the entrance to the underground parking garage.
“Are you sure?” Don asks, clearly not comfortable with just leaving him there.
“It’s all good. Security will know as soon as I get into the parking garage and they’ll come down and get me.”
“Tight security.”
“Really tight,” Peter says.
Don watches as Peter stumbles away from the car and then out of sight.
“FRIDAY?” Peter asks weakly. He makes it halfway to the private elevator that goes up to the Medbay on level 80, the Avenger’s floors, and Mr. Stark’s penthouse. He ends up stumbling and falling down, and then just lying there on his face.
“I have already alerted Boss and the others to your condition,” FRIDAY announces.
“Great,” Peter mumbles, face pressed to the concrete, hand trapped beneath him, still holding the now soaked towel to his wound.
He passes out, or he thinks that he has, because it only feels like a moment before Mr. Stark is by his side, freaking out as much as Don had on the ride over.
“Pete, what the hell happened? Are you with me?”
“M’ here.” His vision is dark around the edges.
“Roll him over.” It sounds like Steve is there too, but Peter can’t see him.
Gentle hands roll him over and then Mr. Stark gasps, and his hands press into Peter’s wound. “Come on, get him up, quick.” Mr. Stark’s voice sounds frantic. “FRIDAY!”
“The Med Bay has been alerted to an incoming patient. The on-call doctor is preparing for Peter’s arrival.”
Strong arms wedge under Peter, and he feels himself being lifted into the air. Steve has him and is running with him to the elevator, Mr. Stark right on his heels.
“Hang in there kid,” Mr. Stark says. This is not the first time Peter has come to the tower like this. They all know the drill. While the Avengers go off on occasional big missions and sometimes come back hurt, Peter is always out patrolling and comes in hurt the most often. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little scratch, or a scrape, or a stab wound (or that one time a bullet wound). Mr. Stark always freaks out no matter how big or small the injury. Eyes closed, Peter smiles to himself a little at the thought. Mr. Stark is the best. He’s the best Avenger, Peter’s favorite, and he will fight anyone on that to the death. To the death. Or maybe in a tickle battle. Peter isn’t sure because his stomach is throbbing and there’s a rushing sound in his ears.
“What are you smiling at over there Underoos?” Mr. Stark asks as the elevator rises through the tower towards the Med Bay.
“M’ thinkin’ abou’ the bes’ Avenger.”
Tony snorts despite his worry, and Steve sighs.
“‘s Thor,” Peter mumbles, smile getting bigger. He peaks open one eye and finds Steve grinning now, and Tony staring at Peter, mouth open. ‘Nah, y’know ‘s you M’r Stark.”
Tony huffs a sigh. Peter closes his eyes again so he doesn’t have to see the worried look on his mentor’s face.
Just before the elevator door opens up to admit them to level 80, Mr. Stark says, “Pete, why do you smell like pizza?”
“I dunno Mr. Stark. I musta been near a pizzeria when it happened.”
* * *
Even though Peter’s done delivering pizzas for the week, he stops by Donatello’s the next day in his spider suit just to make sure Don knows he’s ok. Don is relieved, and hugs him, making sure to stay away from his wound.
“It’s ok,” Peter tells him. “I heal fast.”
“There’s not even a hole in your suit.” Don scrutinizes the stomach area of the spider suit. “You have two suits?”
“I’m like… a Junior Avenger,” Peter says. It’s not an official title, but he’s around the tower enough that he likes to think he’s part of the team. It was Ned who had come up with the Junior Avenger title. “I only have one suit, but they fixed it up for me last night. Good as new. I’ll be ready to deliver pizzas again next week.”
“That’s great. Just promise me you won’t get stabbed again.”
Peter shrugs. He can’t make that promise, and Don seems to accept it.
* * *
Peter thinks Mr. Stark must know something is up. He’s been asking Peter questions lately about what he’s been doing in his free time. Peter plays it cool and he’s pretty sure he’s in the clear at least for now. He likes delivering pizzas. He likes Don. He likes making Ned believe that he’s part of Peter’s escapades as Spider Man, even if that means just bringing him a pizza at the end of the night three times a week. It makes Ned feel loved, or important, or both. That’s all that matters to him. He has a feeling that once Mr. Stark finds out that he’ll have to stop working for Don.
* * *
Peter has always had a sense for when things are about to hit the fan. It’s not his Spidey sense. He’s had this sense since before the spider bite. He can tell when a fight is about to break out at school, or when someone is mad at him. He’s had a feeling all night that things are about to go down and it’s going to involve him somehow.
There isn’t another kidnapping attempt though. There isn’t another mugger with a knife. It’s just a regular night delivering pizzas to people who would rather have a moment with Spider Man than the pizza that they’ve ordered.
It’s at ten forty five on his last pizza run of the night that Peter knows what this foreboding feeling he’s had all night is about. One of his deliveries takes him to the very edge of Queens down near the river to a nice apartment block with a view of the river and Manhattan. Up on the top floor he knocks on a door and when it opens, he’s facing Happy, who looks startled to see him there.
Happy sticks his head out the door, looks down the hall, and then looks back at Peter. He points and asks, “You intercept the delivery kid on the way up or something?”
“Uh…” Peter trails off.
“Kid?”
“Uh…”
Happy crosses his arms and his face grows hard. He’s caught Peter in a number of lies or other things he shouldn’t be doing before, and every time he does, Peter’s brain breaks and all he can do is make nonsensical noises.
Happy motions with his hand at the pizza and then at Peter. “So this is a thing now? You’re kidding me with this, right? Does Tony know you picked up a side hustle?”
“Uh… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Yup, I just intercepted a delivery driver on my way past your apartment. I uh… I heard you lived in Queens. Just stopping by to say hello!” He tries to finish by sounding bright and cheerful, and not like his entire cover as the best pizza delivery spider in Queens has just been blown.
“You had no idea where I live because nobody but Tony knows.”
He takes the pizza roughly from Peter’s hands, and Peter lets him. Then he holds out a twenty dollar bill, and motions with his fingers for Peter to fork over the dollar twenty five in change. Peter pulls the zipped money bag from where it’s clipped to the back of his waist and pulls the change out. He’s a little hurt that Happy doesn’t tip him as he hands his change over. Happy is a grumpy guy, Peter knows this, but he thought Happy liked him somewhere deep down under all that gruff.
“You’re not gonna tell Mr. Stark, right?” Peter asks.
“Go home kid.” Happy moves to shut the door, and Peter throws his foot in between the door and the door jam to stop him.
“Happy! You can’t tell him!” He’s not above begging. “I like this job!”
“Then why are you hiding it from Tony?”
“Hiding?” Peter steps back. “I’m not hiding anything.” Mr. Stark is good at coming up with reasons for why Spider Man should not do things like deliver pizzas. Like the potential for getting kidnapped, because kidnappers could easily lure him to anywhere they want simply by ordering a pizza (thanks Hydra guy). Or like getting stabbed while trying to make deliveries.
“Right.”
Happy gives him one final unhappy look, opens the box, pulls out a slice of pepperoni pizza, hands it to Peter, and then shuts the door in his face. It’s not a tip, but Peter is hungry, and he’ll take it.
* * *
Peter knows by the next night that Happy has told Mr. Stark, or the Avengers, or Pepper, or someone what Peter has been up to. He knows because right at the end of the night, ten minutes until the end of his shift, he returns to Donatello’s and finds a stack of pizzas 12 high, bungeed together and waiting for him.
“Whoa, I can’t take that many at once! Six at a time, remember?”
“I know, but they’re all going to the same place.”
“They are?”
Don hands him the address. It’s not an address, it’s a string of five numbers. This is the code Peter uses to get into the lab at Stark Tower. When he looks up at Don, the man shrugs.
“So here’s the thing. They paid with a card, a hundred dollars more than what the pizzas cost. They said you would know where they were going.”
“Stark Tower.”
Don perks up. “Really? You told them you work here?”
Peter shakes his head. “No, but Mr. Stark finds out about everything. This is probably the last night I’ll be able to work here.”
“What? How come?” Don crosses his arms, then drops them to his sides, and begins to fidget with the dirty towel tucked into his belt that he’s been wiping his hands on all night while making pizzas.
“It’s a long story, but- yeah. Sorry sir.”
“Whoa kid, you don’t gotta apologize to me. The last month and a half have made me more money than I would normally make in six months! I’ve got my own social media for the shop now and we’re at almost half a million followers!” He reaches out and puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “We’re doing all right kid. Trust me. I wish you’d come back, but if you can’t, I’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” Peter mutters, feeling sad. Peter has been saving up the money from delivering pizzas to buy parts to build a gaming PC. He wants to buy all the parts himself and then take them to the lab and build it with Tony. He’s not sure if he has enough money yet.
As he ends his shift and heads out the doors with the towering stack of pizza boxes, Peter turns back and looks at the little shop, the warm light spilling out the large front window.
Don gives him a wave, and Peter, balancing the boxes precariously in one hand, lifts the other and gives the man a salute. Inside, Don huffs a laugh and then salutes him back. Peter doesn’t need to make it all the way to Stark Tower to know his time delivering pizzas is over.
He can’t swing with this many pizzas, so instead Peter climbs onto a city bus, which is surprisingly full for this time of night.
He wedges himself in between a guy who is surprisingly wearing a dark blue Spider Man t-shirt, and a little old lady, stack of pizzas piled on his lap. They’re surprised to see him, and don’t seem to know what to say at first.
After the bus pulls away and is ambling down the dark street, the man next to him clears his throat and says, “You uh… hungry there Spidey?”
“They’re not for me,” Peter says, blushing under his mask.
“Sure,” the guy says, eyes traveling up to the top of the pizza box tower.
“They’re for the Avengers. Captain America could eat five of these by himself.”
“What about the Hulk?” the guy asks.
“Dr. Banner isn’t at the tower right now.”
“But if he was, how many could he eat?”
Peter shrugs and then regrets the gesture as it makes the tower of boxes lean precariously towards the little old lady on his right. She stares up at the tower of boxes and then edges away a little.
“Uh, well, usually Hulk doesn’t eat… he just… smashes. Dr. Banner eats a normal amount of food though.”
“Huh.”
The rest of the ride is silent. Peter switches buses since the first one doesn’t go all the way into Manhattan.
It’s midnight when he arrives at the tower with the stack of pizzas, and another five minutes before he makes it up to level 86 to the Avenger’s common room. FRIDAY confirms for him that this is where Mr. Stark is waiting for him.
When the elevator door opens, the whole team is there, minus Dr. Banner and Vision, who are both in other countries at the moment. He steps out and peers around the tower of pizza boxes. He’s glad that he’s left his mask on, because his face is too red to be seen by the others.
“Go on,” Clint urges, face gleeful.
“Huh?”
“Say the line,” Sam says.
Peter knows what line they want him to say. There’s videos of him saying it all over Instagram and TikTok now.
“What line?” Peter half pleads. Happy is such a traitor. This is definitely the start of his villain origin story, he decides. From this point forward he’ll have to go by the name Dastardly Neighborhood Spider Man.
“Spider Man’s pizza delivery service,” come the discordant cries of the team as they try to say it together. They’re laughing too hard to get it all out though.
“Spider Man’s pizza delivery service,” Peter mumbles. It’s enough to satisfy them though, and Black Widow, Clint, and Sam come to pull the bungee cords off the boxes and divide them up to carry to the kitchen. They grin at him as they do, and when Peter’s arms are finally free, he pulls his mask off, face still red.
Mr. Stark has his arms crossed and is grinning at him like he’s won something here. Peter slowly takes the few steps up to him and complains, “Happy didn’t even tip me when I delivered his pizza.”
Mr. Stark ruffles his hair. “Happy’s got issues kid.” He laughs. So does Peter.